One Tree Hill – Peyton Sawyer and Lucas Scott
Are Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie Burton Departing After Season 6?
The characters of Lucas and Peyton and their love story has been key to The CW teen drama One Tree Hill, but rumors are rife that both Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie Burton, who play the star-crossed lovers, will be leaving the series after the current season.
If they depart, fans want to know if they will be written off in happy or sorrowful circumstances. Looking at the past events of their story, their track record for a peaceful existence is sadly largely blank.
Meeting Peyton Sawyer
Peyton was initially the mistreated girlfriend of Lucas’ half-brother Nathan (James Lafferty), who was the star of the varsity basketball team. Although herself a cheerleader, Peyton was not the stereotypically happy popular pep squad member.
Instead, still mourning the loss of her beloved mother, who died when she was a child, and missing her father, whose job often took him away from the North Carolina town of Tree Hill, Peyton had become a “tortured artist,” drawing the feelings she hid from her world.
Meeting Lucas Scott
Lucas was the illegitimate and abandoned son of town big-shot and former basketball star, Dan Scott. Lucas exhibited natural talent for playing basketball, and when he joins the varsity team of Tree Hill High School his half-brother Nathan, who is already a team member, begins to bully him, until the two brothers put aside their differences.
It is revealed that Lucas has long had a crush on beautiful Peyton Sawyer, and he seems to appreciate her for all the things she rarely allows the outside world to see in her.
Season One
Lucas and Peyton first speak when he fixes her broken down car. Peyton’s car, a black 1960s comet with red interior, becomes a trademark of the Peyton character and it becomes significant in her relationship to Lucas.
Following a party at which Nathan behaves badly, even threatening to frame Peyton for an accident he got into with her car, Peyton breaks up with Nathan.
Peyton and Lucas bond through a series of experiences. For example, Lucas helps Peyton to feel better about her mother’s death, and Peyton’s drawings encourage Lucas to press forward with playing basketball.
Peyton gets scared when Lucas tells her the depth of his feeling, and depressed, Lucas sleeps with Peyton’s best friend Brooke (Sophia Bush), who has been throwing herself at him since he joined the basketball team. Unaware of developments with Brooke, Peyton goes to Lucas to admit that she wants a relationship, but Brooke interrupts.
Lucas dates Brooke for a short time, but decides he really wants to be with Peyton. She also admits to her feelings for him, but she cannot bring herself to hurt Brooke.
Lucas still breaks up with Brooke, and Peyton and Lucas end the season as friends.
Season 2 and Season 3
During the second season other love interests were written for Lucas and Peyton, who remained close confidents.
During the third season, due to the real-life relationship of Chad Michael Murray and Sophia Bush, the series chose to rekindle a romance between the characters of Lucas and Brooke, but during their short relationship, Brooke often complained that Lucas was still close to Peyton.
Peyton was troubled by learning that she was adopted and also learning that her biological mother was dying of cancer. As Lucas helped her through these traumas, Peyton realized that she still loved him.
Out of loyalty to Brooke she said nothing of her feelings, until a school shooting caused Lucas to go back into the school to save her. Lucas found Peyton shot in the leg. They remained trapped in the library, and Lucas kept Peyton talking to try to keep her awake. Having lost a lot of blood, and almost unconscious, Peyton kisses Lucas, telling him that she loves him. Finally carrying Peyton to safety, Lucas thinks she was delirious, but the revelation of these events prompts Brooke to break up with Lucas at the end of the season.
Season 4
Peyton attempts to hide her feelings for Lucas, but following being attacked by a stalker and learning that the half-brother she has just gotten to know is being sent to Iraq, Peyton tells Lucas that she loves him.
At first, Lucas does not know how to reply, but when the team wins the state championship the next day, he tells Peyton that it has always been her. Their happiness is very short lived because the same evening Lucas suffers a heart attack. He recovers, but the two encounter various family tragedies throughout the remainder of the season.
Season 5
Following high school graduation, the series chose to fast forward five years. The audience was shown that about a year after leaving high school Lucas proposed to Peyton, but thinking they were too young to marry she wanted to wait. Instead he broke up with her.
Following their breakup, Lucas got a novel published and contacted Peyton when he was on his book tour. She came to meet him at a signing, but saw his then editor, Lindsey kiss him. Thinking he was going out with someone else, Peyton left without Lucas seeing her, prompting him to go on a first date with Lindsey. Peyton also met someone else, movie producer Julian, who she dated until he feared that she really still loved Lucas.
Peyton returns to Tree Hill hoping to rekindle a romance with Lucas, but he is going out with Lindsey. He is drawn to Peyton, and even kisses her, causing him to propose to Lindsey. Peyton prepares to lose Lucas, but on the wedding day, Lindsey realizes that Lucas’ new novel, The Comet is unintentionally about his love for Peyton. Lindsey leaves Lucas, who falls into depression, even telling Peyton he hates her.
Season 6
The season opens with Lucas having called Peyton to ask her to marry him. Still engaged, the couple are frightened to learn that Peyton is having a baby, and complications with the pregnancy may cause her death.
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